


Knight Trumps Joker

by misura



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Book 1, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "If you considered me worthless in truth, you would have abandoned me long since," said Will."I suffer from optimism," said Lymond.





	Knight Trumps Joker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueteak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/gifts).



Will drank. The wine was poor stuff, better fit for pouring on wounds than drinking while still reasonably sober. Even so, it spared him from feeling obliged to speak, and frustrated at being unable to decide whether he wished to complain or apologize.

The thought of doing the former embarrassed him, while the mere idea of the latter made him sick to his stomach. Silence, then, seemed preferable, although in the company of Lymond, it was a rare silence that would not eventually be broken.

Lymond sighed. It was not a sound suggesting weariness of either the body or the mind. Rather, it was the sound of a man about to deliver a lecture delivered too many times before.

"I thought," said Will, "I had already received my punishment." Although the wine had numbed them for now, he knew that he would feel the bruises in the days to come.

"Well, and as a reward for accepting it meekly, may I not bestow upon you some words of wisdom, previously fallen on deaf ears?" Lymond held out his hand, meaning clear.

Against his better judgment, Will handed over the wine.

Lymond did not drink, or rather, he did, but the wine he drank was his own, rather than Will's, which was put aside with casual grace.

"I already know very well everything youre going to say," said Will, reluctantly having settled into a sullen mood. Pointless, to ask Lymond to share his wine or ask for his own back. The only course that remained was to end the conversation with haste, and hope that he might come out of it mostly unscathed.

"Your confidence is a heartening to see as it is misplaced, my lambkin."

"Try me," challenged Will.

"Have I done anything else, these past weeks?" Lymond drank. "The effects, mind, have been somewhat disappointing overall. Still, I am not averse to a challenge, and where some might only see a flood of flaws, others might merely allow there to be ample room for improvement. What pleasure in reshaping a mind already fully formed? Far more enjoyable to create a diamond from mud, or to discover the means by which gold may be created from other, less noble metals."

"You've done plenty of other things, I would say," said Will, who had been kept in the dark regarding a greater portion of these activities than he felt his loyalty warranted.

"I suppose I might consider this blind faith flattering, but I fear my mood is not so generous in this moment."

"Why don't you say what you have come to say, then, and leave me alone?"

Lymond regarded him. "Is it not obvious? My mood being as it is, I want amusement. Something to lift my spirits. Upon consideration of my options, I was forced to set my dwindling hopes on your meager ability to entertain."

"You thought that, after you beat me like a dog, I would cheer you up?"

"The behavior of dogs is far more easy to correct than that of men," said Lymond. "Had I a dog that displayed your thickheadedness, I would have simply killed and replaced it."

"I'm going to bed," said Will, rising with neither the intention nor the hope to actually do so.

"The coldness of your heart after I bared mine to you wounds me deeply," replied Lymond.

Will sat down again. "I didn't mean to complain. You had the right."

"It warms me to hear the masses are not about to rise in revolt, bent on overthrowing their betters. I had the right, you say, and so I did. The right to beat you. The right to have you flogged or sent you to your room without supper. The right, in fact, to do whatever I please with you. Is that not so, my pup?"

"I swore my loyalty to you," said Will. "I am not an oath-breaker. My word, once given, remains so."

"Shall I order you to my bed? Would that finally be enough to drive you off? There must be something, do you not think, that will prove that you are, perhaps, not this picture of chivalry that you insist on painting of yourself. It is very tiresome, or I find it so, at any rate."

Will remembered The Ostrich, the heady feeling that had come over him when Lymond had taken him to that backroom. For a moment, there, the thought had fluttered at the edges of his mind, teasing at his imagination - but it had not been so, of course. Some vices, even Lymond would steer clear of.

"My answer to both your questions is no," he said.

Lymond offered him the wine. Will accepted.

"Mind, you might ask." The wine was sweeter than Will would have preferred, or expected. "I might even say yes, if you asked me nicely enough."

"What a bold creature you aspire to be, my Marigold," said Lymond, taking the wine back. "A happy truth, is it not, that I have not an ounce of niceness in my soul, nor the least inclination to ask for things when I know with perfect certainty that they are already mine but for the taking."

Will felt his face grow hot.

"You gave me your loyalty because you so admired me that you could not bear the thought of not being in my company, remember?" Lymond's tone was mocking, cold. "A poor reason to take you in, but then, I had hoped that I might scratch away the surface of your madness to discover something more worthwhile hidden underneath."

"If you considered me worthless in truth, you would have abandoned me long since," said Will.

"I suffer from optimism," said Lymond. "It is one of my very few character flaws. Also, I admit that I am loath to confess to being wrong. It sits ill with my self-image."

"You mean you prefer lying to everyone, including yourself."

"Consistency is considered a virtue, my darling kettle. One you value highly yourself, if memory serves."

"You're right, you know," said Will. "There is nothing I would not do, if you commanded it. Nothing I would not let you do to me, if you wished it."

"I am right much more often than most people appreciate," said Lymond. "Let us leave it at that, my Pyrrha. It is true enough, after all."

"You say you will not ask," pushed Will. "What if I did so?"

"I would consider it a clear sign of your madness and suggest a cold bath or perhaps, if time allows, a diversion. Honesty, Master Scott, from a self-admitted deceiver. Value it. If not in this moment, then later, when you have a cooler head."

"Liar," said Will. He felt feverish, near-delirious. He had pushed at Lymond's temper before, dared his mood even when it was bad, knowing that the worst Lymond might bring to bear fell just shy of what Will could stand bearing. There was a rush to sometimes, a sense of excitement, to dare what no other man in the band would dare.

There was an element of self-deceit in this, as Will was well-aware. He was far from immune to Lymond's punishments; like any man in the band, Will had broken. He had been ruined, reduced, wrecked and put himself together again, after. He was neither special nor unique. He belonged to Lymond, body and soul, but so did all of them.

"You try me," said Lymond. "Try harder, if your intent is to give offense."

"And give you a reason to beat me again?" asked Will.

"I'll be gentle, this time," said Lymond. "As it seems clear you enjoy it when I am not, and it is my philosophy that a punishment should not be enjoyed if it is to be effective."

"Take me to your bed," said Will.

Lymond smiled. "You do not listen to me at all, my Percival. You want a hot bath and a good night's sleep, only one of which is to be found in my rooms. So it must be away with you, and away with me, and if our paths cross again in the morning, it will be sooner than I like. Come, then."

Will rose, half-expecting his legs to refuse to bear him. They held steady, though.

Lymond was watching him, expression as unreadable as always, offering neither aid nor comment, which, Will reflected, was just as well. The former, he would have refused; the latter, responded to, thereby postponing what he still found difficult to accept might happen.

It felt too easy, somehow. Too sudden. Something would come up, or Lymond would change his mind, or Will would make a mistake.

"There's a hot bath in your rooms?" he asked.

"There should be, at any rate, and I've been given no reason to expect different," said Lymond. "Ask me nicely, and I may agree to wash your back. Ask me not at all, and I may lose interest and wander off in search of something more entertaining to do."

"I haven't an ounce of niceness in my soul, either," said Will.

"Then lie with conviction, my Ganymede, and provided I find your effort pleasing enough, all may not be lost," said Lymond.


End file.
